The present invention relates to a vehicular lamp, and more particularly to a vehicular lamp of a type which produces a parallel light beam from a light source using an elliptic reflector and a projection lens.
There are generally two types of the vehicular lamp producing parallel light beams. One lamp type employs a parabolic reflector and the other an elliptic reflector and a projection lens. The latter type is so-called a projection lamp. Projection lamps are advantageous in that they can be made smaller in size than the former type, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,677,532, 2,338,901 and 1,581,581.
In a vehicular lamp of the former type, as shown in FIG. 3, a light absorbing treatment is often applied to an outer cover 1 for preventing inside of the lamp from appearing overly bright while the lamp is turned off. Similarly, a light absorbing treatment is also applied to the outer cover of the latter type in order not to show the inside of the lamp from the outside of the outer cover.
However, the light absorbing treatment increases manufacturing cost. Further, the light absorbing treatment reduces the light transmission of the outer cover substantially to 40-60%, thus requiring a larger bulb to maintain the same output light intensity.